Business or Law school

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>I really want to study business in college, but i want to go to law school in the long run. I am considering giving up majoring in Business, to better prepare my self for the legal world. I would like to combine the 2 fields but then again i dont know. I figured majoring in Accounting and goin to Law school would be pointless.(since both of the careers make have high potential gains) If i go to Law school with a BA in Accounting, i would be missing out on a good amount of money.(that i could have got from working 3 years)</p>

<p>So what is your take? Should i leave business alone? and just do what i think i would enjoy more? Or should i just get a degree in something business related other than accounting and go to law school? maybe a BA in Marketing?</p>

2

<p>Your logic is very flawed.</p>

3

<p>I’ve heard that accounting is one of the best things you can major in as a pre-law student and that law firms like to hire people with accounting backgrounds, especially if they worked in accounting for a few years before going back to law school.</p>

<p>You bring up a good point when you mention the high opportunity cost due to lost wages of going to law school, but a CPA with a law degree can make big money as a consultant.</p>

<p>If you like law and can get into a top 20 or so law school, I would definitely do accounting to law in your shoes. If you don’t get into a top law school, it may just come down to deciding if you like your work as an accountant, and if you don’t, you’ll do well out of law school because most students won’t have the work experience that you will. However, I would abandon the plan to major in something other than accounting just because you feel conflicted about it’s earning potential. If you hate accounting, change it, but if you can stand it, keep it because it will benefit you as a lawyer and provide a great backup plan.</p>

4

<p>@whistle </p>

<p>a few typos up their, but you know in economics how they have that whole Opportunity Cost thing?</p>

<p>@opened</p>

<p>thats the point i was trying to make, sorry if my words were a little scrambled</p>

5

<p>What is the opportunity cost of studying accounting? Missing the chance to study something that will help you land a better job? Or something that you think you enjoy?</p>

6

<p>Both fields are good, if i make the grades i should be able to get a good job in either.</p>

7

<p>I know plenty of people with over a 3.5 that were utterly ignored by the big firms/all firms. And law is like 10x worse. Sooo…</p>

8

<p>Since I am both a CPA and attorney, I might have a suitable background to address this issue.</p>

<p>Majoring in business, especially accounting, is a two edged sword as far as going to law school. First, you will NOT be as prepared for law school as your liberal art counterparts. Law school , and law in general, requires a LOT of reading and especially writing. Accounting majors and business majors in general aren’t good writers and don’t get a lot of practice writing papers. When I attended law school during the days of the dinosaurs, every person who made law review had a liberal art background. All of the science, business, accounting majors didn’t make it.</p>

<p>In fact, since the freshmen foundation law classes include criminal law ( which does involves some constitutional law) and constitutional law, political science majors definitely have a edge since they learn about the constitution in college.</p>

<p>Secondly, business majors and even accounting majors tend to do worse on the LSAT than that of many other majors. In fact, even math and science majors generally slightly outperfom business majors on the LSAT. I don’t know why,but statistics have shown this to be the case.</p>

<p>HOWEVER, with all that said, majoring in accounting in particular can be very beneficial if you want to practice tax law or even business law. I certainly did better in tax courses than my other law school counterparts who majored in topics other than accounting. Moreover,some business programs, such as Bentley University, have decent training in negotiations,which will help with mediation and business dispute courses in law school.</p>

<p>Finally, law schools want diverse majors in their classes.Most people who apply to law school had a major in some liberal arts. If there are fewer accounting applicants vs. that of liberal arts, you might have a slight leg up on admissions for some law schools. The same can be said for engineering and science majors too.</p>

<p>My suggestion is to take whatever major interests you the most because you will probably get good grades and do well in it. However, you should also take at least one political science course in the constitution and several courses in public speaking too,which will greatly help in moot court. If you can take a good minor in liberal arts, especially philosophy, this will probably be the ideal curriculum for law school. If your school offers any courses in negotiation or mediation, I would also take those too. Of course, without a lot of AP credits, who has room for all this?</p>

9

<p>opened: Wha kind of consulting can a CPA/JD do besides tax consulting? I know that some might be able to do business contracting, but wouldn’t you want experience at a BB investment bank for something like that?</p>

<p>I guess estate planning is another possibility, but any others?</p>

10

<p>Taxguy,
I too am a current business major thinking about law school in the future… I’m unsure on the area of concentration at the moment but I’m definitely going to have a PoliSci minor, and either will minor in Econ (business concentration, not liberal arts) or will decide on Econ as the business major… Do you think this would be more sufficient prep than just a business major alone?</p>

11

<p>Kayleigh, as I noted in post number 9, any liberal arts major, especially, PoliSci would be a good preparation for law school. However, minoring in economics will not necessarily be beneficial unless you want to write about financial or tax policy. I can say that philosophy majors generally score higher as a group than that of most other majors except math majors. Again, I don’t know why. Perhaps it is the logical thought process that both math and philosophy engender.</p>

12

<p>Taxguy, I am a business major with a concentration in Accounting and I can attest that the business department at my school give assignments that require intensive professional writing style. My business program might be an exception to the rule.</p>

13

<p>@ cream: Tax consulting is exactly what I was talking about. If you’re good you can make over a hundred dollars an hour. My dad knows a guy who does tax consulting with a major firm and bills clients almost $1k per hour.</p>

<p>As for the LSAT comments, I think it’s dumb to look at averages by major because you’ve got to keep in mind that there are some majors, like accounting, where it’s often the not-so-bright students or ones at poor schools that would be likely to take the LSAT because law was their backup plan. If you were to put all of your faith in those rankings, you might as well study religion because those students usually perform very well on the LSAT.</p>

<p>As for taxguy’s comments about writing, we still have required rhetoric and english classes in the core curriculum as well as communications and business writing classes in the business curriculum. I’ve had several histories, governments and other liberal arts classes as part of the university core that required a lot of papers and essays as well. I’m not trying to say an accounting major is going to get as much practice with writing as any liberal arts student by any means, but I’ve had plenty of classes that require it and if you really wanted the practice, adding an English minor would probably be fine.</p>

14

<p>As a matter of fact, I dislike writing class assignments but if you give me a paper to edit, I will dissect it words by words until you get it right. LOL I get writer blocks for class assignment because because I feel that the strict academic writing rules sometimes collides with my creativity/creative mind. </p>

<p>1 question:</p>

<p>How should I tactfully state that I am a good writer and a good editor on my resume?
I have been writing for a newspaper for a few years and a work of mine will be published in an upcoming anthology. Would that give prospective employees a clue about my writing skills? Since you keep on saying that Business and Accounting major are know for having bad writing skills. I want to dispel that myth for my case.</p>

15

<p>Thanks for the advice!</p>

16

<p>Kayleigh, I recommend minoring in math or physics.</p>